+ Who’s your celebrity crush? I burst out laughing at Joanna’s running commentary and “Looking at photos of him is like looking at the sun” would make a great t-shirt slogan! Also, I loved loved loved the comments.

+ This Everygirl article broke my heart. (Grab the Kleenex.) “Since his death, I have celebrated life each day. I hug each person I love when I say goodbye, as he would have done. I treat strangers with extra kindness, knowing that at some moment we will all experience loss and will have to continue to be out in the world unsure of what’s ahead.”

Happy Sunday, everyone. I hope you’re enjoying the weekend. I am putting together my spring reading list and I’ll be sharing it with you all on Tuesday!

If you’re looking for some weekend reading, I’ve got you covered with my favourite links…

+ Last night, I started The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and I am already 100 pages in. This is a story that desperately needed to be told. It’s tearing me apart. I can’t stop my hands from shaking while reading certain parts. All I can think is “this feels so real.” And that’s because it is real; it’s happening every single day. Here’s a great interview she did with Atlanta magazine. I am ecstatic it’s being adapted into a movie!

Happy weekend, friends! Got any fun plans? Seriously, where is February going? I really wish the year would slow down just a little bit.

Have you filed your taxes yet? I plan on filing mine online this Sunday. I can’t wait to get it out of the way. Also, will you be watching the Oscars? I don’t think I’ve watched any of the movies in the running, but I’ll be tuning in nonetheless. We used to do an Oscars pool at my old workplace and it was so much fun!

Whatever you end up doing, I hope you have a good one! If you’re looking for some reading, I’ve got you covered with my favourite links…

+ I discovered Griffin on Instagram this week and I appreciated her super honest post, Loving the Body I Hate. I wrote these words on a Post-It and stuck it on my bathroom mirror: “But, if you struggle with loving your body, like me, remember that love is first an action. One of the best things you can do is act in a way that’s loving to your body, even if your mind is telling you otherwise.”

+ Teenagers who vandalized the Asburn Colored School in Virginia sentenced to read. The list of 35 books includes The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Night by Elie Wiesel, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, and The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

+ Did you see this story about the flight attendant who saved a young human trafficking victim on an Alaska Airlines flight? “Something in the back of my mind said something was not right. He was well-dressed. That’s what got me because I thought why is he well-dressed and she is looking all dishevelled and out of sorts?”

Happy Friday! Can you believe it’s the final weekend of January? It’s cold and grey and snow flurries are on the way. If it’s not too cold out, I plan on checking out the Toronto Light Festival in The Distillery District. It looks like such an amazing event!

Got any fun plans this weekend? As always, I’ve rounded up my favourite links from around the web this week…

+ The right way to fall. “The key is to not fight the fall, but just to roll with it, as paratroopers do.”

Happy Thursday, everyone! Got any fun weekend plans? Whatever you end up doing, I hope you have a good one!

This weekend I’m heading out of town to spend time with family so I am sharing my favourite links from the week a bit earlier than usual. This week’s links are pretty incredible and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do…

+ Joanna attended a holiday party at the White House and of course, she shared all the details! I literally squealed when I read this post. Cup of Jo is the one blog I read every day for its informative, uplifting, honest, and “out of the box” posts. Joanna is such a lovely, genuine, and down-to-earth person. I am so happy she was recognized by the Obama Administration for her support, authenticity, hard work, and providing a safe and welcoming space for her readers. (Make sure to scroll down and read the comments.)

Happy weekend, friends and congrats on making it through the week. I made a conscious effort to smile at everyone I can across this week in the elevator, at the supermarket checkout, on the street. It really boosted my mood and I’m pretty sure it did the same for others.

Christmas is in the air! Shop windows are all decorated, Christmas trees are going up all over the city, and stores are playing Christmas tunes. Oh and the Toronto Christmas Market opened last night. It tends to get pretty crowded on the weekends, so I plan on going one evening after work to avoid the long lines. (Admission is free from Tuesday to Friday.) I’m praying that everyone doesn’t have the same idea!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! As always, I’m sharing my favourite links and this week’s links are soooo good! Make yourself comfortable and enjoy…

+ A different approach to keeping young offenders out of prison. “Children as young as 13 can be tried in adult criminal court for serious crimes in New York state. But instead of redirecting troubled kids, prison hardens them. That’s why the New York Foundling, a private children’s-advocacy organization, offers an alternative, Families Rising, a diversionary option that mandates family therapy in exchange for delayed sentencing and avoiding a criminal record entirely if the program is completed successfully.”

+ Made me laugh out loud. “My sister moved in, her five cats moved in, and her ex-husband moved in. It’s driving me nuts. My sister watches those murder programs. And her ex-husband is Irish so he keeps talking about the potato famine. He loves that potato famine. Always the potato famine.”

Happy weekend everyone. I hope you had a wonderful week and you’re ready for some rest and relaxation. The weather switched suddenly here in Toronto this week and I actually had to wear layers.

Got any fun plans this weekend? Whatever you end up doing, stay safe! As always, here’s a roundup of my favourite links this week…

+ How to Be Both. “This is what I grew up seeing, so that is what I grew up being: a young adult with a social consciousness to do what I could, and to, at the very least, speak up when I knew something was wrong.”

+ Ella shared her thoughts on social media and it was so honest and real. “Social media isn’t there to create a platform from which to try and emulate a stranger or aim for a photo-shopped image of virtual perfection. Don’t forget as you scroll through account after account that no one is or will ever be perfect, the concept of perfect is subjective and lies solely in the eye of the beholder.”

+ Zadie Smith: dance lessons for writers. On the connection between writing and dancing: “It feels a little neglected – compared to, say, the relationship between music and prose – maybe because there is something counter-intuitive about it. But for me the two forms are close to each other: I feel dance has something to tell me about what I do. What can an art of words take from the art that needs none? Yet I often think I’ve learned as much from watching dancers as I have from reading.”

Happy weekend, friends! I hope you had an amazing week. Here in Toronto, the leaves seemed to have changed overnight and my neighbourhood is exploding with yellow, orange, and red. We didn’t have much of a fall last year so I am taking it all in. Fall just might be my favourite season.

Got any fun weekend plans? It’s 66 degrees and sunny today so I plan on taking a walk along the trails and soaking up the vibrant fall colours while I can.

If you’re in the mood for some reading, here’s a roundup of my favourite links this week…

+ Bookselling in the 21st Century: On the Difficulty of Recommending Books. “I swing between wanting to press my dearest books into strangers’ hands and wanting to hide. I may as well be handing over a piece of my psyche: here is something important to me, this helped me during a painful time, this made me cry. In opening a book I recommend a person opens a window onto who I am. If they dislike the view it feels like a rejection. I know it is not personal, I know that any interaction with a stranger has minimal effects on us both, and yet the fear lingers, similar to telling someone your real feelings.”

+ Can I get a Nose on This? How one chef deals with not being able to smell. Chef Adam Cole on what he would say to those in his profession who consider his inability to smell a disability: “I say Beethoven was deaf and he made beautiful music. I’m not comparing myself to Beethoven, but there are composers who can’t hear who can write music; there are blind artists who paint pictures. I guess it goes to show there’s a lot more intuition that goes into creating than just our perceived abilities. Technically it may be a disability, but it’s never kept me from doing anything I’ve wanted to.”

+ I’ve been listening to NPR’s newest podcast How I Built This and it’s fascinating. I loved the episodes on Instagram and Vice Media.

+ I hate being on my phone all the time. “Recently, my fingertips have started to feel numb because I’m scrolling so often. Numb! That can’t be good. For me, the phone promotes habitually bad behavior, which, if I had to guess, stops mental expansion.”

I flew through Susannah Cahalan’s memoir Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness in two days. I am happy I gave this memoir another chance. Brave, inspiring, captivating, beautifully-told, and it didn’t scare me as much as it did when I first read it years ago. Highly recommend.

This week, I picked up These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf on the recommendation of one of my favourite librarians. I read it in 8 hours. Lyrical, moving, shocking, and unputdownable.